The Vice of Charity
by Beaglicious
Summary: Why isn't Chase rich? And what other secrets is he hiding? Chase centric fic. Spoilers through 2x22, Forever. No ships, Chase Cameron friendship.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**A/N: ****Chase-centric fic. May contain spoilers for all episodes through 'Forever.' No ships yet.**** WIP.  
**

**Summary: Why isn't Chase rich? And what other secrets is he hiding? **

The Vice of Charity

_House: You've been double-dipping. Taking your vacation time here while drawing a salary at NICU. Strange… rich boy doing all that for some extra cash._

_Chase: I'm not rich._

_House: But your dad was…Now he's dead. If you're not rich, that mean that daddy cut you out._

_Chase: I'm not rich._

_House - Forever  
_

He was waiting for her again. He waited in the shadowy corner, hidden away from the brilliant morning light that penetrated her office. The rich chocolate leather was cool, almost icy to the touch. Exposed to near-continuous blasts of air conditioning and shielded from the sun's warming rays, it caused shivers to run up his arm when he touched it with his bare hand.

He watched her stride in, purposeful and determined, every movement projecting her chosen image: a career woman who had it all. You'd never guess that she wanted more. He didn't know why he'd chosen to keep her hidden agenda a secret, but he had. At the same time, he thanked his y chromosome for not providing him with a nagging internal clock that bleated: Baby, baby, now, now!

"You and Chase both lied to me." His rough voice broke the silence.

She sighed, unceremoniously dumping her purse, jacket and a few other nondescript items on her desk. "Stop breaking into my office, House," she demanded.

"Not until you tell me why Chase is using his vacation time to work in the NICU. And why _you_ broke protocol to allow his vacation request to be approved without going through his _immediate_ supervisor." He paused, then continued, "That would be me, in case you forgot that as well." He stood then, and hobbled without his cane over to her desk. She had decided to ignore him, choosing instead to focus on the stack of mail at her desk.

"Those ridiculous trade journals can wait, Cuddy," he chided. "It's not like they've got anything new to say. It takes them ten years to run a study, another 2 years to write the article and then another year to get all the commas right so they can publish it. And then every sentence is footnoted to an older study." He was clearly enjoying this. "Oh yes, and then there's the conclusion – my favorite. 'More studies are needed.' You don't actually waste your time reading these, do you?" he asked, picking up a stackful of the journals in question and dumping them in her trash.

She looked up at him then, and frowned.

"Hey, you're the one who was hiding behind protocols last month when Foreman was dying. So, let me get this straight: It's ok to break protocols for a rich white kid who needs a few extra bucks because his trust fund check is late this month, but it's not ok…"

"House!" She exploded before he had time to finish. "Chase came to me and asked for the time off because you never signed the paperwork he left on your desk two months ago." She drummed her manicured nails exasperatedly against the smooth finish of the oak desk.

"He never told me about the paperwork."

"Yes, I did, House. Twice, in fact." Chase's voice hit House hard from behind, causing him to spin around too rapidly on his right leg. He winced in pain and glared at Chase.

"Easy on the cripple, ok?" he said menacingly.

Chase rolled his eyes at House and then looked to Cuddy for help. House swiveled his head back to stare at Cuddy as well, who was looking at him as if to say, "See?"

House shrugged. "Cameron must have lost it. Probably couldn't stand the idea of going two weeks without her little wombat lover."

"House!" Chase and Cuddy's voices cried out in unison.

House hobbled back to the couch and picked up his cane. He was nearly to Cuddy's door before he turned around to address them one last time. "I'll find out, one way or another. Secrets" - and here he gave Cuddy a knowing look – "never stay secret for very long around this place."

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"Hey Chase," Cameron's green eyes were bright as she welcomed back the veteran member of their team. "We missed you."

Chase smiled warmly at the team's sole female member. Cameron's niceties had once irritated him, until he found that her niceties were in fact, sincere. When Cameron asked how you were doing, you didn't have to answer "Fine," whether you felt fine or not. You could tell her exactly how you really were feeling, and she'd commiserate or rejoice with you. After working alone with her for six months, he'd been rather unwilling to share her with Foreman. He wanted to believe that her concern was reserved for him alone. But Cameron shared her compassion equally amongst the team, even though it rewarded her more often than not with tears and hurt feelings. He had never hurt Cameron, at least, not in the way that Foreman and House had.

He managed to rein in his frown until after he'd turned his back on her, not wanting her to misinterpret it. If he was honest, really honest with himself, he'd probably hurt her worse than Foreman and House had combined. He'd used Cameron in the worst possible way there was to use a woman and had then coolly pushed her aside like soggy corn flakes. Sometimes, he really hated himself.

"So," she continued, blissfully unaware of the real reason behind his absence, "What'd you do to Cuddy to get assigned to the NICU for two weeks? House said you needed a break from him, which is believable, but for as long as you've been around, I just don't buy it. You've been through worse with him and didn't need a break then."

"Cameron?" he began as gently as possible, not wanting to completely alienate the last person who cared about him. "I don't want to talk about it now, ok?" His words came out harsher than planned, the way they so often did. Why did he snap at people like that? No wonder everyone thought he was a spoiled rich brat. He certainly sounded insolent enough to be one.

She blinked, a bit taken aback by his abruptness, before her buoyancy returned. "Okay," she softly agreed.

Chase winced at the pain that had crept into her voice. "Cameron, do you want to get some coffee this afternoon?" he asked, turning around to face her. But his eyes met only with her empty chair, and he looked through the clear glass to see her hurrying down the hall towards the bank of elevators, unsuccessfully attempting to clip her beeper back to her belt.

Chase sighed. Some vacation. All he got was a lousy two weeks a year and he'd spent every single day of those two weeks in this hospital. It didn't look like they had a case at the moment either, although Cameron was liable to return with a potential one at any moment. He glanced warily around the empty conference room, then sank down into one of the chairs and pulled out his laptop from his bag.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: My apologies for the delay. I had a little trouble figuring out how to get from Point A to B, but I think I've got it fixed now. I'm not sure how many chapters this will end up being, but I'm shooting for no more than five. Many thanks for all the reviews. Glad you're all enjoying it. Feedback, suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Still not mine. **

The morning passed uneventfully, if slowly. Foreman wandered in a half hour after Cameron had left. "Hey man, glad to have you back."

Chase grunted in response, a half-acknowledgement and a half-snort.

An hour after she'd left, Cameron returned, empty-handed. "False alarm." She sighed, sinking down into a chair next to Chase. He turned and looked at her.

"You actually go down to the ER to look for cases?" he asked incredulously.

"Where do you think our cases come from?" she snapped. "Either Cuddy makes House take a case because the patient is a donor, or I find one in House's mail or the ER."

"I've pulled a couple from the clinic," Foreman added, as an afterthought.

Cameron closed her eyes and sank further down in her chair.

House poked his head in the door a few times, frowned at his young trio and left.

"Clinic duty?" Chase asked after House had left wordlessly for the third time that morning.

Cameron consulted House's schedule. "No," she said, surprised.

The rest of the day was quiet and patientless. At 5 o'clock sharp, Chase stood up and slung his bag onto his left shoulder. "I'm outta here," he said, then stalked out of the room and down the hall without waiting to hear the questions that were forming on his co-workers' lips.

"That was weird," Foreman finally said.

"Mm-hm," Cameron said thoughtfully, staring down the empty hallway.

"Did he say anything to you today about that stint in the NICU?" Foreman asked.

"No," Cameron said, swiveling in her chair to face Foreman. "But I wouldn't ask him about it, if I were you. He's a bit prickly over the whole issue."

Foreman nodded and went back to his journal. Cameron stood up and stretched, extending her arms high above her head. "I might as well head home too," she yawned.

"Not so fast," a gruff voice grumbled from the door. "We have a new case."

"Do you want me to go get Chase?" Cameron offered. "He just walked out. I bet he's still on the property."

"No," House said. Cameron looked at him suspiciously, but sank bank into her chair without saying more.

"Okay," House began as he hobbled over to the white board and picked up the marker. "Twenty-seven year old male, presents with mental disturbances, including agitation and hostility"

"Do you have his chart?" Cameron asked. Foreman frowned at House, then looked at Cameron.

"He's talking about Chase, Cameron." He went back to frowning at House. "What is your problem, man? Can't you just accept that we might have personal problems, and you don't exactly give off the warm, caring persona that would inspire us to come and talk to you?"

"Cameron told me about her dead husband," House said glibly.

"Cameron doesn't count," Foreman shrugged.

Cameron, who had been glaring at House, opened her mouth in shock at Foreman and refocused her glare on him.

"I think he's depressed," House mused, turning to write 'depression' at the top of the white board.

"A normal response to losing someone," Cameron snapped. "Especially when you didn't know that person was ill, and only found out when your evil stepmother calls you after he dies."

"Evil stepmother?" House asked, intrigued. He turned around and studied Cameron.

Cameron snapped her mouth shut, horrified at her slip, and refused to say more.

"Come on, Cameron," House jeered. "What other secrets did Chase spill during pillow talk?"

Cameron flexed her jaw, but refused to rise to House's taunt. "If that's all you have," she finally said, "I'm going home." She stood up and peeled off her lab coat.

"Not so fast," House said, raising up his cane and pointing it at Cameron, coming mere inches from hitting her squarely on her chest.

Cameron coolly glanced down at the cane, then raised her eyes to meet House's. They stared at each other, the contempt clearly evident in her eyes and the challenge just as apparent in his. Finally, House dropped his cane back to the floor and turned around to study the board. Foreman raised his eyebrows, fascinated by Cameron's boldness.

"We need to pull his medical records," House decided, then turned around again to regard his ducklings, although he wouldn't meet Cameron's eyes.

"That's confidential," Cameron reminded House. "Not that that fact has ever stopped you before."

"Would you get over it already?" he yelled. "There wasn't anything interesting in your file anyways!"

Cameron turned, pulled her overcoat off the rack, and slid it on before answering. "Not the point," she said softly. "And I wasn't talking about my file." She looked at him knowingly. "Stacy wasn't too pleased, was she House?"

He frowned at her. "Go home."

"Fine," she said. She quickly gathered up her files and left. House stared after her retreating figure for a moment before looking at Foreman. "Call the pharmacy and find out what medications Chase is taking."

"House, you need to let it go," Foreman said, rising from his chair. "Cameron's right. That information is confidential. Do your own dirty work."

"No need to get all high and mighty on me," House said.

Foreman rolled his eyes and left.

House stared at the white board, then hobbled downstairs to the pharmacy.

Normally, he wouldn't be so bold as to go downstairs to the pharmacy and ask for Chase's prescription records. He was a well-known face in the pharmacy, and the staff had been warned about him. But he'd cut through the clinic earlier that morning, and noticed that there was a new face behind the counter. He was hoping that she hadn't yet heard about him.

He stepped up to the counter, laying his cane across it, and scratched the back of his neck. His seldom-used lab coat was itchy.

"Can I help you?" the new face asked, smiling.

He attempted to smile back. "Dondi," he said slowly, reading the name off her nametag. "What kind of name is that?"

Her smile never faltered. "Only child," she answered. "Dad's name was Donald, and Mom wanted to name me after him."

He was bored with her explanation two words into it. "Lovely. I need to write some refills for one of my patients."

"Okay," she said, handing him a prescription pad. He took a pen and held it over the pad, pretending to think.

"I don't exactly remember what I wrote for last time," he said, trying to sound embarrassed.

"No problem, um, Dr. House," she said, reading the name stitched in blue thread on his coat. She paused. "That name sounds so familiar."

"There's a couple of us on staff here," he said quickly.

She was still thinking. Finally, she shook her head. "I'm sure it will come to me later. Let's see," she began typing on the keyboard. "What's the patient's name?"

House cleared his throat. "Chase, Robert," he answered. "Date of birth, February 12, 1979."

She continued typing, then stared at the screen and frowned. "I don't see where you've written any prescriptions for Robert," she said.

"Maybe it was my partner, Dr. Frazier," he offered, naming one of the psychiatrists on staff. "You know how hard doctors' handwriting is to read. Sometimes you just have to guess."

She shook her head again. "Nope, no Dr. Frazier. Are you sure you have the right patient?"

"Just a minute," he said, stepping away from the counter and pulling out his cell phone. It rang twice before an angry female voice answered.

"Now what?" Cameron asked. She had just arrived home and was trying to get her key in the door.

"I can't find Chase's prescriptions. Do you know if he gets them under another name?"

He waited for a response, but all he heard was a click and then the line went dead. Undeterred, he hit redial and waited.

"Look, House," Cameron grumbled. "If he's smart, he doesn't get his prescriptions filled at the hospital anyways. After you pulled my file, I had all mine transferred out. There are at least a hundred pharmacies within a thirty minute drive from here. Have fun," she said sweetly before clicking the phone shut.

House returned to the counter and picked up his cane. "I'll have to go check my records," he said.

"No problem, Dr. House," she said. He wondered how anyone could smile for that long and not become ill. "We're open until nine."

"Right," he muttered, then left the clinic and headed for the elevators. He was going to have to find out another way to pull Chase's records. Something was going on with him, and he was determined to find out what it was.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Still, not mine.**

**A/N: Many thanks again for all the R&R for the last chapter. If there's a bit in here about the drugs that seems contradictory, it is, but will be explained in the next bit. Lorazepam is the generic name for Ativan, and isn't overly appropriate for depression, but that hasn't stopped anyone yet. Teeny-tiny reference to L&O:CI, just because I wanted to. ;-) I don't own that one either.**

**Summary: Post-ep to 'Forever.' Chase-centric fic. Why isn't Chase rich? And what other secrets is he hiding?  
**

The nightmares returned again that night, and in his sleep, Robert Chase moaned, because he'd been so sure that his two weeks of penance would earn him at least one night of dream-free sleep. But the demons that plagued his nights were not appeased by his act of contrition and in fact seemed angered by it, so that they stirred up his mind and presented him with his most horrific nightmare yet.

Chase's limbs thrashed beneath the sheets, and his arms pulled the pillow out from under his head on their own volition, and threw it across the room. The moonlight that peered through his blinds offered no comfort, but merely highlighted the strands of hair that stuck to the sweat on his forehead.

_In his dream, as always, Chase was walking down a long corridor. A pulsing blue light ebbed and flowed at the periphery of his vision, but every time he tried to turn his head to follow it, the light vanished. It was too quiet here, he thought. No one was screaming. Why weren't they screaming? his dream self asked. _They needed to be screaming!_ The faces he stared at did not answer back, but melted away into nothingness as the steady hiss of something dark and ominous continued._

Chase woke up with a racing heart and sweaty palms, the way he always did. Opening his eyes, he looked around and saw his errant pillow resting haphazardly in a corner. He made no move to get it, hesitant to test out the strength of his legs. He grabbed the spare pillow from the other side of the bed and pulled it to him, wrapping his arms around it tight as he pinched his eyes shut.

He was angry about the dream returning. In the past, whenever he'd worked in the NICU, it had taken the dream days, sometimes even weeks to return. He sighed. The nightmare was interrupting his sleep nearly every night now. He wasn't sure how much longer he could go on like this.

He rolled over to his other side and pulled a framed picture off his bedside table. He regarded the faces in the pictures, but said nothing, offering only a silent apology, and then laid the frame face down on the table. He opened the table's drawer next, rummaging around in it blindly until his hand wrapped around what he was looking for. He pulled the amber vial out of the drawer and stared at it. It was a prescription for lorazepam, 1 mg tablets, filled last November. He'd had the prescription for almost six months when he'd finally taken it to be filled. The pharmacist had looked at the original date closely and then looked at him suspiciously.

"_This prescription was written six months ago," he said. "Why are you just now bringing it in?"_

_Chase wasn't about to tell the man that it was because he'd just climbed out of bed with his doped up co-worker and he was concerned that she'd be agitated when the drugs she'd taken finally started to wear off. He knew that giving prescription drugs to others, especially controlled ones, was highly illegal under federal law, not that that ever stopped most people. _

"_Death in the family," he said, deciding that the lie should at least contain a partial truth. "It took me a long time to realize I needed help, and an even longer time to decide that I might need medication as well."_

_Nearly every word after the first sentence had been a lie, but the pharmacist's face softened. "My condolences," he offered. "Give me just a few minutes and I'll have this ready for you." _

_Chase let out a breath of air he didn't realize he'd been holding. It was true that he'd finally gone for counseling about his father's death (once), and that the psychiatrist had written him the lorazepam prescription, but that was where the truth ended. Chase had no plans to ever take the medication, but had taken the prescription to keep the doctor happy._

But now, looking at the vial and the small white pills inside, Chase wondered if maybe the doctor hadn't been right after all. He looked at the bedside clock. Three am. It was too late to take one now, he decided, throwing the bottle back in the drawer and shutting it softly. Maybe tomorrow. There was another vial, one that wasn't so full, in his medicine cabinet. He wasn't even going to think about that one right now.

Chase had found that once the nightmares succeeded in disturbing his sleep, they usually left him with a bit of peace in the wee small hours. He rolled over onto his stomach and buried his head underneath the pillow. Sleep came easily enough, but it didn't stay long, and at six am, Chase's eyes were open again, and his hand that had sought out the prescription vial was now busy looking for the alarm's snooze button.

TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**A/N: Just a short bit before the final chapter. Thanks, as always, to everyone who has R&R.**

**Summary: Why isn't Chase rich? And what other secrets is he hiding? Post-ep to 'Forever.' Chase-centric fic.**

Chase slung the comforter off himself, watching it land in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed before sliding off the edge and stumbling bleary-eyed into the bathroom. He really hated mornings. A long, hot shower did little to improve his attitude, but it did leave his skin covered in angry red welts. Chase wiped away the condensation with his hand and frowned at himself in the small medicine cabinet mirror. He had a peculiar habit of staring at himself in the mirror, not in a narcissistic fashion, but more in a self-examining one. Most of the time, he wasn't too pleased with what he saw.

Chase gently tapped the bags under his eyes with his index finger, then frowned at himself one last time and opened the cabinet. A prescription vial glared at him from the second shelf. Chase picked the vial up and stared at the label as he did every morning. _Bupropion hydrochloride,300 mg. Take one tablet daily for depression. _Chase opened the vial and dumped one of the white pills into his hand. Why did he always feel like his own medication was judging him for his short-comings? Unlike the lorazepam, he hadn't resisted taking this medication. Bupropion wasn't addicting, as far as anyone knew, and he'd found that popping a pill once a day was a much better alternative to lying in bed for days at a time, unable to summon the energy to even roll over and stare at the other side of the wall. He was thankful that he was one of those depressed people who was able to sleep, even though it wasn't pleasant to wake up and realize you'd lost eighteen hours of your life. He'd never been suicidal either, fortunately, although that didn't mean he enjoyed living.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Chase put the vial back in the medicine cabinet and grabbed his toothpaste. He quickly swallowed the pill, then began brushing. _The next time I see the doctor I'll ask him about stopping these things, _he thought, as he returned to studying his face while he brushed. Chase was such a perfect blend of both his parents' better features that he'd ended up not particularly resembling either one. Still, on some days, he swore that he saw his father's face and not his own. The overpowering guilt he saw in those eyes was enough to make him turn his back to the mirror. _That's not dad in the mirror, _he reminded himself. Dad or no Dad, there had been too much blame in whoever's eyes those were to face them this morning.

It was mid-morning, and House was thumbing through a medical journal. Like he'd told Cuddy, he generally found these things to be a waste of time, but one of the articles mentioned on the cover had grabbed his attention. The pages fluttered noisily as House rapidly flipped through them. He found the article towards the back of the magazine and read the title: _Long-term Outcomes in Kidney Function in Pre-term Neonates Treated with Gentamicin: A Retrospective Analysis._ The study had been conducted at an Australian hospital.

House studied the article more closely for a second longer, then swiveled around and thumbed through his files. He was almost positive he'd heard of that hospital before, and when he pulled Chase's CV his suspicions were confirmed. "Very sneaky, Dr. Chase," he muttered, then swiveled back around and grabbed the phone. It was time to make some calls.

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	5. Chapter 5

**The Vice of Charity  
**

**Disclaimer: Not mine.**

**A/N: My apologies in advance for the language. If foul mouths offend you, please be forewarned. The rating has been changed to reflect this. I tried to keep the medical details to a minimum, but if you have any questions feel free to ask. Further details follow at the end. Thanks for all the R&R.**

**Summary: Why isn't Chase rich? And what other secrets is he hiding? Chase-centric fic. Spoilers through 'Forever.' No ships, CC friendship.**

"Chase killed his baby sister and you let him work in the _NICU_? Have you lost your fucking mind?"

House burst through the door of Cuddy's office so hard that it slammed back against the jam with a resounding thump. He crossed the distance to Cuddy's desk in three long strides and tossed a handful of papers onto her desk, most of which kept going straight to the floor. Cuddy had looked up the second she heard her door open. She opened her mouth to speak, but House cut her off.

"Don't," he said coolly. "Don't make excuses for him. I read the reports. The hospital wrote it off as a_ systems_ breakdown. All that bullshit means is that four people fucked up their job instead of just one, and the only way the hospital could keep from shutting their doors was to blame it on the system." He was ranting now, and pacing back and forth in front on Cuddy's desk, although the effect was muted by the compact space and his long gait. "You knew I was going to hire him and didn't think I needed to know this kind of information? This is just fucking unbelievable."

Cuddy watched House pace and rant, a slightly exasperated yet bored expression on her face. When he finally slowed down to face her, his blue eyes glowing with anger, she spoke. "It's your responsibility as his immediate supervisor to perform adequate background checks on your departmental hires."

"What is with you people? Is no one to blame for _anything_ these days?"

"I didn't know when you hired him. Chase came to me a few months into the job, right when you had your first case involving a newborn and told me the whole story. _I _looked into the reports, and felt that the conclusion their internal review board drew was satisfactory. You were already giving Chase a hard enough time then as it was."

"So you agree with this bullshit summary? All those people are doing is protecting their own asses."

He turned around and stormed out, leaving as violently as he had arrived, and Cuddy sighed as the door bounced shut, then laid her head down on her desk and closed her eyes.

**………………………………………………………………………………………………**

The raging storm that was House continued out of Cuddy's office, through the clinic, into the elevator, up three stories, and down the hall to his department. He was a bit more careful pushing into the glass door of the diagnostics department, well aware that shattered glass could really ruin the effect. His entire team was sitting at the table, engrossed in their reading.

"You dumbbastard!" House yelled. The team looked up, horror in their faces. It wasn't often these days that House's anger provoked a reaction in them, but they could tell that this time he meant business. "You _killed_ your baby sister and didn't think to tell me?"

Cameron and Foreman's heads swiveled toward Chase, as neither one of them had a younger sister. A mask of grief and regret passed briefly over Chase's face before it turned to stone. His icy eyes never broke with House's.

"I did," he said calmly, and House recoiled as if hit in the gut. He'd expected denial, anger, even tears, but not an admission of culpability. "_And _I spoke with Cuddy about the matter, and she agreed that I didn't need to tell you, because you would act just like this."

House's anger, which had began to dissipate with the admission, flared once more. "A justifiable reaction, don't you agree?"

"I suppose," Chase answered, nonchalantly. "Although I've never found anger or foul language to be particularly effective at solving any problem."

"Right. And pacifism has solved _all_ of the world's problems."

Cameron and Foreman, who had fortunately sat down on the side of the table closest to the door, had half-risen from their seats in hopes of escaping unnoticed. House saw their movement and bellowed, "Sit!" They sank back into their chairs, chastised, and cringed. Cameron shot a sympathetic gaze at Chase, but his eyes were still locked with House's.

Chase stood up. "If you're done yelling at me, I have work to do."

"No, I am not done yelling at you, and you may not have any work to do for me ever again."

"Yes, you are House." Cuddy's calm voice cut through the room, and she quickly found four sets of eyes focused on her. Cameron's green eyes glistened with pain, while Chase and House's brilliant blues shone with anger. Only Foreman looked bored, as usual, but even his molten dark eyes were glimmering with some emotion that Cuddy couldn't read.

Before anyone could gain their composure to speak, Cuddy started dispensing orders. "Cameron and Foreman, I think you both have clinic duty. House, you are coming with me to my office. Chase, you come with me also. I'll need to talk to you as well."

Cameron opened her mouth to protest the extra clinic work, but Foreman tapped her foot under the table, and she closed her mouth.

**……………………………………………………………………………………………...**

That afternoon, Chase made his way down to the cafeteria. He wasn't particularly hungry, but taking a lunch break was the last think he could justify doing before heading back to the department. House was still furious with him, although he had finally stopped yelling. Chase wasn't sure that Cuddy's intervention to save his job had been worth it. House was going to make his life a living hell from now on.

Chase's luck went from bad to worse as he left the cashier and saw Cameron sitting alone a few tables away. Brilliant. She looked up, saw him, and he watched emotion pour from her eyes. He couldn't walk away now, so he began to carefully weave his way through the tables to her. He gingerly laid down his tray, careful not to spill his soup (because that was always a good item to eat when you weren't really hungry but needed something to pick at) and then sat down. His eyes briefly met with Cameron's before she looked away. She too was picking at a bowl of vegetable soup, and despite his glum mood, he laughed. Cameron looked up, confused.

"The soup," he said, pointing at her bowl.

"Yeah," she replied with lackluster. "I'm not really hungry." She pushed her bowl away from her. "You didn't have to come sit with me, you know," she told him.

"Right," he scoffed. "You'd really be okay if I just breezed past you and didn't say anything? I wouldn't hear the end of it for days, and you'd be trying to read more into my actions than there was to begin with. It's easier just to sit with you."

Her face darkened. "So now I'm your pity party? Thanks. Next time, spare me the favor." She pushed back her chair, angry, and Chase suddenly realized he didn't want her to leave.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Please stay. I could use the company." Cameron tilted her head, studying his face, as if to see if he was being sincere. Finally, she nodded and scooted her chair back up to the table.

The events of the morning hung heavy between them, and the pressure mounted as neither one spoke.

"You probably think I'm a horrible person," Chase finally said.

"Would you stop telling me what I think and feel?" Cameron asked, still angry. "You don't know me well enough to make such assumptions."

"I killed my baby sister, Cameron," Chase responded, the petulance creeping into his voice. "You have to have some sort of feeling about that, and I haven't met too many people who get warm fuzzy thoughts at the idea."

"We all have patients who die, Chase," Cameron said.

"Did you kill one of your siblings?" Now Chase was angry. Cameron said nothing. "Right. I thought so."

"If you sat down to pick a fight because you're angry at House or with yourself, don't take it out on me." Cameron pushed her chair away from the table again. Chase winced at the scrape of metal on linoleum.

"You have got to stop doing that," he said.

"Then stop giving me reasons to leave," she snapped.

"Okay. I'm sorry." Cameron looked at him warily, but remained seated, leaving the chair pushed away from the table.

"We don't have to talk about it," she finally said.

"I actually want to talk about it," he decided.

"Then talk, and stop accusing me of things I haven't done," she countered, folding her arms across her chest.

He sighed. He'd never really told his story to anyone, not that there'd been anyone to tell it to. By the time he was done explaining things to the review board, his supervisor and the hospital attorneys, he'd had enough. His stepmother hadn't given him a chance to explain. She'd either cried or yelled every time they were in the same room together, while his father had simply walked out. He'd told his therapist, but that didn't really count. And since coming to the States, he hadn't made any friends to tell. Outside of the hospital, Chase could list the number of people he spoke with regularly on one hand. And he didn't think his doorman or the cute girl who ran the cash register down at the grocery store wanted to hear his story.

"So, my parents got divorced when I was sixteen, right? Mum died right before I went to uni, and Dad got remarried sometime while I was in medical school."

Cameron stopped him. "You don't know when?"

"We weren't exactly speaking to each other," he reminded her.

"Anyways, I started my post-graduate work at a women and children's specialty hospital, not too far from where Dad was living. I wanted to be a pediatrician. By that time, Hayley – that's my stepmother's name – had been bugging my dad for years to reconcile with me." He paused and looked at Cameron, debating on whether to explain more. _Screw it,_ he thought. "Hayley's pretty devout," he offered. "Forgiveness, in the abstract sense, is – was – very important to her." His face curled into a sneer.

Cameron raised one eyebrow, but said nothing. She was remembering that Chase had admitted to going to seminary, but decided that for now that part of his story wasn't particularly relevant.

"Well, Dad pretty much blew her off. Hayley wasn't – isn't – much older than me, and he knew that was going to be, um, awkward. Obviously at some point, Hayley got pregnant with my baby sisters."

"_Sisters?_" Cameron asked. Chase nodded.

"Twins. She had a tough pregnancy from the start. At twenty weeks, she had her cervix stitched shut – a cerclage - and was put on bed rest. At twenty-four weeks, she was admitted to the hospital and put on a magnesium drip. At twenty-six weeks, they weren't able to stop her contractions, and she had to have an emergency c-section."

Cameron was amazed. Chase couldn't remember what year his dad had gotten remarried, but he could recount every detail of his stepmother's pregnancy in detail. He hadn't said much about his stepmother _that_ night, just that he had one and that she had "Cinderella syndrome." She hadn't understood what he'd meant, but knew enough about the fairy tale to guess that their relationship was tenuous, at best. Cameron was surprised that she'd remembered such details, as the drugs had erased most of her memory about that night. Funny enough, she remembered more about what she and Chase had talked about _after_ than what had happened _during_, although she suspected his chatter that night had meant to be soothing, and that he hadn't expected her to remember any of it. Chase was an intensely private person, and she wondered if he remembered what he'd said to her, or if he suspected that she remembered it. A blush spread up her throat.

"Are you ok?" he asked, eyeing her.

"Fine," she managed to choke out. "Really," she promised, when he kept staring at her.

"So, what happened next?" she asked, desperate to change the subject.

"I was on-call for the NICU the night she delivered. Can you believe that I never even knew Hayley was in the hospital? I'd been in that hospital nearly every day that she was there, and Dad knew it, and he never once said anything to me. Sometimes, I just want to blame it all on him. If I'd just known that Hayley was there, I never would have taken her case."

"Didn't the people you worked with know? I mean, I got the impression that your dad is – was – pretty famous."

"Well, sure, the people at the hospital knew who he was. But they didn't know anything about him beyond his reputation, and I certainly wasn't telling people whose kid I was. It was an impossible standard to live up to." Cameron nodded, understanding.

"But didn't she recognize you when you went down to the delivery?" Cameron asked. She hadn't spent a lot of time in L&D or NICU, just a brief three week rotation during medical school, and wasn't too sure about how that whole system worked.

"No, I stayed up in the unit. The respiratory therapists went down and brought Hope and Charity back up. They were so tiny…." He trailed off.

Cameron didn't know what to do. Chase looked so pitiful that she wanted to give him a hug, but they'd never been the touchy type to being with, and ever since that night they'd given each other plenty of space. She clenched her hands together tightly in her lap.

"Hope was the smaller of the two, but I could have held them both in one hand." Chase wiped at his face, and Cameron suddenly found a very interesting piece of lint to pick at on her pants. Chase's grief was private matter, and she knew he wouldn't appreciate her shallow comforts.

"Anyways, it could have been a case study in what went wrong. They both got weighed, obviously, but somehow their weights got reversed in the computer system. I ordered the surfactant to help their breathing based on those weights, and neither the pharmacy nor the nurse caught the mistake. There was so much chaos. I should have double checked the charts. They were right there… I'm not really sure what happened after that. I wrote the order and went off to look at a set of quads that had come in an hour before. Hayley and Dad never even got to see Charity. I was the only one...and I didn't even know who she was." He sat up straight in his chair then, and his voice took on a calloused tone.

"Well, you can probably figure out the rest. Both of them were in full blown respiratory distress, and Charity, because she was bigger, didn't get enough medication. She died later that night." He crossed his arms and stared across the cafeteria.

A thousand words rushed through Cameron's mind, but she held them all back. There was no point in telling him that it would be okay, because it wasn't. Charity was dead, and Chase had to live with that fact for the rest of his life. And no matter how many people told him it was a system failure, Cameron knew that he felt personally responsible. Cameron swallowed hard, then reached out and hesitantly touched Chase's arm lightly. He turned and looked at her hand on his arm and then looked at her, her eyes saying everything her mouth couldn't. Cameron left her hand there for a moment longer, then pulled away.

"And so now your stepmother blames you."

Chase snorted. "Yeah. The person who pushed so hard for my dad to talk to me and then named her children after Christian virtues hates my guts. She even convinced my dad to change his will, which is why after Dad died last year, I ended up with nothing, which I wouldn't even care about so much except for the fact that I have a ton of school loans and no way to pay them off."

"But why would you work in the NICU? I can be a glutton for punishment myself, but even that seems a little extreme."

"The adult ICU in this hospital is a joke. And right before I went on vacation, they had fifteen new NICU admits within forty-eight hours. They were overloaded, even at full staff. It was Cuddy's suggestion."

"How was it?"

"It was good actually, except for your patient's child, the one with celiac disease. I actually felt a lot better after I finished there. Of course, House saw my paycheck and starting putting two and two together, and now my life is a bigger disaster than before."

"He'll get over it," Cameron said.

"Maybe," Chase said doubtfully.

"I've always had nightmares about that night, but they've gotten even worse lately. I just keep dreaming that I'm back in the NICU, but all I can see is the glow of the bili lights, and all I can think about is the fact that none of the babies are crying because their lungs are so undeveloped."

"That's pretty normal for the NICU," Cameron reminded him.

"Yeah, it's all normal until I see Charity and Hope again, and I watch them die in front of my face while Hayley and my father watch me."

"But Hope – she's still alive, right?"

"Yeah," Chase answered, and a smile passed briefly across his lips. "She's great. Hayley won't let me see her, obviously, but Dad used to send me pictures. I think it was his way of apologizing for screwing me over with the money, not that I had any idea until after he died. She looks a lot like me, actually. She just turned six a few months ago, and you'd never guess she was born so early, except for the glasses."

"Glasses on a toddler will give away a preemie every time," Cameron said. "They always look so cute though. Like little Einsteins."

Chase's smile widened.

"Do you think you'll ever see Hope? I mean, it's not really fair to her either. She has a big brother who saved her life, and she's never gotten to know him."

"I didn't save her life, Cameron. I just managed not to kill her." The light-heartedness died away.

"Look, Chase, you can mope about this until your dying day, but you need to realize that it takes a lot of work to keep a twenty-six week old baby alive. What happened with Charity is a horrible tragedy, but you can't forget about what you did for Hope either."

"I might as well," Chase shrugged, although Cameron's words had touched him more deeply than he would admit.

They sat in silence for a few minutes more, Chase worrying about the fate of his job and Cameron trying to process everything he'd told her. Finally, Cameron squirmed, and spoke.

"I've got get going. My lunch break was over twenty minutes ago, and they're waiting for me back in the clinic. Sorry." Her eyes were full of regret.

"No, no," Chase said, shooing her away. "Go. I'm sorry I kept you."

"I'm glad you did," Cameron said shyly. "You're a good doctor, Chase, don't forget that." She stood up and then turned back to face him. "Look, I know you and I don't have the greatest track history with going out for drinks, but do you want to try again? I can meet you somewhere."

Chase smiled at her. "We'll see. Let me think about it."

"Okay." Cameron smiled, touched him briefly on the shoulder, and then left. Chase stared across the cafeteria for a while longer, then stood up and left.

He walked next door to the doctor's lounge and was relieved to find it empty. Pulling out a card from his wallet, he picked up the phone and began to dial. After several rings, a tiny voice answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, Hope. Is your mother home?"

_Fin_

**A/N 2: So the gist of it is that babies born before 38 weeks gestation tend to have pretty crappy lungs. They haven't yet started making surfactant, which is basically a snot-like substance that keeps the alveoli from collapsing. Exogenous surfactant is often given to compensate for this deficiency. Bili lights are blue UV-ish bulbs that jaundiced newborn babies are exposed to. The light converts the bilirubin into an excretable form. As for the glasses, preemies often have to be given supplemental oxygen. Too much oxygen, over time, can damage the retinas. It's a pretty good bet that if you see a young child ( 4) wearing glasses, they were a preemie. I am NOT a neonatologist or even a medical student, but I have spent some time in the NICU. This is a pretty simplified version of the facts, and prone to exaggeration for plot purposes. This note is in no way meant to serve as medical advice or counseling and is for informational purposes only.**


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